I've been looking for a Transporter The Rescue on and off for a few years now and recently put a bit more of a concerted effort into trying to pick one up. After failing to locate one in the UK and having one offered to me for silly money in Europe I finally managed to find a project game on the Belgian/Dutch border 
After not getting a shipping quote I was happy with, the decision was made to road trip it. I got everything arranged over the last week or so and yesterday was the day 
As I could only take the one day off work and wanted to keep the costs down this was going to be a one shot trip to Belgium and back in a day
I was booked on the 6:50am Channel Tunnel crossing so this was what greeted me when I got in the car:
2:40am in the morning, trip counter set to 0 and a full tank of fuel...Nottingham to Folkstone, bring it on First stop of the day was local to grab a coffee.....
The first part of the trip went great. Made good time down the M1 as it was dead at that time and got to the M25 slightly ahead of schedule. However there were signs of the problems to come As soon as I got onto the M25 I started to see signs about long delays at the Dartford crossing...how bad could they be though, at that time in the morning
I hit the traffic jam at 4:30am and this was the view I was greeted with.....
At 6:30 this was my view...notice very little has changed apart from the sun coming up
Turns out there was a massive accident at Dartford and they'd closed the QE2 bridge. Apparently I was lucky with my 2 hour wait as some people had been sat there for 5 hours!!!
Finally got to the Channel Tunnel at about 7:30am, only 40 mins late so I was still positive about my schedule. On checking in I was told that they'd bump me to the next crossing with space available....at 12:20pm
Fair play to the customer services guys at Eurotunnel Because so many people had been affected by the Dartford accident they sorted out an extra train and I finally left the UK at 10:16am. They also rescheduled my return journey for 7:50pm, all free of charge
The drive through France and across Belgium went off without incident and was really nice. Awesome weather has resulted in me developing a fantastic truck drivers arm. It was motorways pretty much all of the way and I arrived at the town where I was collecting the game dead on my new schedule.
The town is home to a fighter base for the Belgian air force so I got to see some F16's doing formation landings coming over the top of my car. There was also this on one of the roundabouts....
The game was in a warehouse on the edge of a forest and when I got there was all set up for me to view. I was more than pleased with what I saw so got it loaded up and was ready to hit the road again The only problem with having this game in the car was the size of the head meant a very uncomfortable driving position for the journey home.
The pictures are going to dry up from this point on as I basically either didn't have time or had descended into a sleep deprived, caffeine fuelled madness for the trip home
I set off still on schedule for my 7:50pm crossing back to the UK but things started to go wrong quite quickly. My Satnav decided that rather than take me back the same way I'd come (motorways and the easy life) it would up the ante a bit and take what I guess it thought was a quicker route.
First it tried to take me down a road that was closed due to roadworks and because I can't read French or Flemish I had no idea how to follow the diversion. I ended up in the back streets of a very pretty town trying to find a way back through to part of the road that was open. In the end I had to do some off roading through the roadworks, breaking numerous traffic laws but managed to get back where I needed to be. The next thing was what really screwed me though....it took me through the middle of Antwerp during rush hour
This meant I had no chance of getting back to Calais in time and once again arrived at the Eurotunnel late for my crossing at 8:30pm. Checked in and was told that they could get me on the 10:20pm crossing By this point I'd been travelling for 18 hours and was a broken man so the time to chill out and get some food was actually a good thing....my back was killing me as well
The low point of the trip was standing next to my car for half an hour while we went under the channel and all I could think about was the 3.5 hour drive I had ahead of me. I was knackered but had taken so many caffeine tablets that I was in this weird sort of state that did not feel good!
Got back into the UK at 11:00pm, at least the roads will be quiet? No....got to Dartford at about 11:45pm and there was gridlock again WTF!!!!! Nowhere near as bad as last time but still had to wait for a while. I also got flashed by a speed camera on the M25, have no idea what speed I was going as by that point I wasn't really with it so will just wait for the letter to arrive
At about 1am on the M1 whilst doing about 80mph something very strange happened, I'm assuming due to the lack of sleep and pills. I became very confused and didn't really understand what I was doing or where I was....basically I'd completely lost my **** I pulled into the next services and walked around the car park for about half an hour until I managed to regain my senses for the final push home. This was the scary bit
I eventually arrived back at my house to see this on the car dashboard:
So 23.5 hours later, having travelled across 3 countries for 800 miles I was back home with the game. Got 4 hours kip before getting up and going to work this morning. The most brutal journey I have ever done and will never do again. Couriers are the future people, heed my warning
After not getting a shipping quote I was happy with, the decision was made to road trip it. I got everything arranged over the last week or so and yesterday was the day As I could only take the one day off work and wanted to keep the costs down this was going to be a one shot trip to Belgium and back in a day
I was booked on the 6:50am Channel Tunnel crossing so this was what greeted me when I got in the car: 2:40am in the morning, trip counter set to 0 and a full tank of fuel...Nottingham to Folkstone, bring it on
First stop of the day was local to grab a coffee..... The first part of the trip went great. Made good time down the M1 as it was dead at that time and got to the M25 slightly ahead of schedule. However there were signs of the problems to come
As soon as I got onto the M25 I started to see signs about long delays at the Dartford crossing...how bad could they be though, at that time in the morning I hit the traffic jam at 4:30am and this was the view I was greeted with.....
At 6:30 this was my view...notice very little has changed apart from the sun coming up
Turns out there was a massive accident at Dartford and they'd closed the QE2 bridge. Apparently I was lucky with my 2 hour wait as some people had been sat there for 5 hours!!!
Finally got to the Channel Tunnel at about 7:30am, only 40 mins late so I was still positive about my schedule. On checking in I was told that they'd bump me to the next crossing with space available....at 12:20pm
Fair play to the customer services guys at Eurotunnel
Because so many people had been affected by the Dartford accident they sorted out an extra train and I finally left the UK at 10:16am. They also rescheduled my return journey for 7:50pm, all free of charge The drive through France and across Belgium went off without incident and was really nice. Awesome weather has resulted in me developing a fantastic truck drivers arm. It was motorways pretty much all of the way and I arrived at the town where I was collecting the game dead on my new schedule.
The town is home to a fighter base for the Belgian air force so I got to see some F16's doing formation landings coming over the top of my car. There was also this on one of the roundabouts....
The game was in a warehouse on the edge of a forest and when I got there was all set up for me to view. I was more than pleased with what I saw so got it loaded up and was ready to hit the road again
The only problem with having this game in the car was the size of the head meant a very uncomfortable driving position for the journey home. The pictures are going to dry up from this point on as I basically either didn't have time or had descended into a sleep deprived, caffeine fuelled madness for the trip home
I set off still on schedule for my 7:50pm crossing back to the UK but things started to go wrong quite quickly. My Satnav decided that rather than take me back the same way I'd come (motorways and the easy life) it would up the ante a bit and take what I guess it thought was a quicker route.
First it tried to take me down a road that was closed due to roadworks and because I can't read French or Flemish I had no idea how to follow the diversion. I ended up in the back streets of a very pretty town trying to find a way back through to part of the road that was open. In the end I had to do some off roading through the roadworks, breaking numerous traffic laws but managed to get back where I needed to be. The next thing was what really screwed me though....it took me through the middle of Antwerp during rush hour
This meant I had no chance of getting back to Calais in time and once again arrived at the Eurotunnel late for my crossing at 8:30pm. Checked in and was told that they could get me on the 10:20pm crossing
By this point I'd been travelling for 18 hours and was a broken man so the time to chill out and get some food was actually a good thing....my back was killing me as well The low point of the trip was standing next to my car for half an hour while we went under the channel and all I could think about was the 3.5 hour drive I had ahead of me. I was knackered but had taken so many caffeine tablets that I was in this weird sort of state that did not feel good!
Got back into the UK at 11:00pm, at least the roads will be quiet? No....got to Dartford at about 11:45pm and there was gridlock again WTF!!!!! Nowhere near as bad as last time but still had to wait for a while. I also got flashed by a speed camera on the M25, have no idea what speed I was going as by that point I wasn't really with it so will just wait for the letter to arrive
At about 1am on the M1 whilst doing about 80mph something very strange happened, I'm assuming due to the lack of sleep and pills. I became very confused and didn't really understand what I was doing or where I was....basically I'd completely lost my ****
I pulled into the next services and walked around the car park for about half an hour until I managed to regain my senses for the final push home. This was the scary bit I eventually arrived back at my house to see this on the car dashboard:
So 23.5 hours later, having travelled across 3 countries for 800 miles I was back home with the game. Got 4 hours kip before getting up and going to work this morning. The most brutal journey I have ever done and will never do again. Couriers are the future people, heed my warning
